# Amazon Lord of the Rings series; The Rings of Power **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** middle-earth, amazon-prime, tv-shows-scripted\ **Created:** [March 3, 2019, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazon-lord-of-the-rings-series-the-rings-of-power/830497 "2019-03-03T20:01:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 64
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazon-lord-of-the-rings-series-the-rings-of-power/830497/1263 "2022-10-16T04:29:52Z")
The little riff about the key and the dam was amusing. The Fates seem to have jarred the Stranger out of his cognitive and linguistic stupor. Galadriel suffers from the same problem as professionals who get seduced into illegal activity, then are manipulated and silenced by playing on their shame. They then isolate rather than taking responsibility and bringing others in to help solve the problem. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazon-lord-of-the-rings-series-the-rings-of-power/830497/1264 "2022-10-16T04:58:35Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Something that bothers me - > > Galadriel is correct. It can’t be just chance or mere fate that she and Halbrand find each other in all the ocean, nay the world. It has to be the Valar having that sort of power to impact events in mortal realms. Returning to this - Fate, a Valar, whatever … surely not mere chance brought them together, and Sauron could not have connived to make it happen. It seems strange thing for whatever Forces may be in this world to make happen. Did they just decide that Middle Earth needs more suffering? ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazon-lord-of-the-rings-series-the-rings-of-power/830497/1265 "2022-10-16T04:59:39Z")
> [@susan](#): > > Galadriel suffers from the same problem as professionals who get seduced into illegal activity, then are manipulated and silenced by playing on their shame. They then isolate rather than taking responsibility and bringing others in to help solve the problem. She’s like the person duped by a Nigerian Prince scam who is afraid to admit it because of her involvement. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazon-lord-of-the-rings-series-the-rings-of-power/830497/1266 "2022-10-16T05:07:27Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Did they just decide that Middle Earth needs more suffering? Eru does like dissonance. In order to bring his song to the climatic finish he desires, there’s going to need to be some suffering along the way. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazon-lord-of-the-rings-series-the-rings-of-power/830497/1267 "2022-10-16T05:16:11Z")
> [@Atamasama](#): > > She’s like the person duped by a Nigerian Prince scam who is afraid to admit it because of her involvement. Except she did all the work of the con herself, but she really did believe that he was royalty of a foreign nation. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazon-lord-of-the-rings-series-the-rings-of-power/830497/1268 "2022-10-16T05:44:44Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > It seems strange thing for whatever Forces may be in this world to make happen. Did they just decide that Middle Earth needs more suffering? One of the biggest themes in Tolkien’s writing is that God allows evil to exist because it will lead to a greater good in the end. Arda basically exists because Iluvatar is demonstrating to Melkor that it is impossible to truly rebel against Him because everything he does to try to defy His will only serves to bring it to fruition. ---
**Author:** ![Pavelb1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/439d5e/32.png) [@Pavelb1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pavelb1)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazon-lord-of-the-rings-series-the-rings-of-power/830497/1269 "2022-10-16T06:31:21Z")
Im trying to remember…was it a Lucifer comic where he railed that every time he seemed to have some sort of triumph, God would just gaslight him with “all part of my plan son.” ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 7:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazon-lord-of-the-rings-series-the-rings-of-power/830497/1270 "2022-10-16T07:29:54Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > every time anyone interacts with the physical world, i have trouble suspending disbelief Do you have the same problem with … every action movie and TV series? Because bad physics is standard to those. > [@puzzlegal](#): > > I really liked Galadrial in the books. I looked up to her as a wise and kind demigod. I just can’t reconcile that with the Galadrial in this series. It is, however, in keeping with her freakout in the Peter Jackson movie, which they explicitly called back to when Sauron was tempting her… And we see her in the book primarily through the eyes of Frodo, whereas in Gondor and Rohan her woods are feared and shunned. So ‘kind’ is in the yes of the beholder even then. > [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > Maybe Middle Earth lava isn’t nearly as hot and deadly. > [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > Also less dense. Maybe it’s [carbonatite](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ol_Doinyo_Lengai#Lava): “the lava erupts at relatively low temperatures of approximately 510 °C (950 °F). […]It is also much more fluid than silicate lavas, often less viscous than water.” Although that temperature isn’t going to be good for smelting precious metals (unless mithril lowers the [eutectic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eutectic_system#Alloys) by, like, a whole lot. Which seems unlikely but hey:… a(n elf-)wizard did it.) ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 7:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazon-lord-of-the-rings-series-the-rings-of-power/830497/1271 "2022-10-16T07:55:12Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Maybe it’s [carbonatite](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ol_Doinyo_Lengai#Lava): “the lava erupts at relatively low temperatures of approximately 510 °C (950 °F). Didn’t know about that. Neat. Still–it’s black, not orange, due to the low temperature (i.e., blackbody emissions are in the deep infrared). The problem with being surrounded by orange lava is that there’s an _immense_ amount of radiative power. There’s no way around that; the amount of power received by each patch of your body is a function solely of the solid angle of the visible lava and the temperature. The Sun is about 1200x more intense per square degree than lava would be ((5800 K/1000 K)^4), but it only covers a solid angle of 0.2 degrees^2. If half of the lower hemisphere is lava (i.e., standing on a rock in the middle of a pool or something), that’s about 10,000 degrees^2. So about 40x as intense as the Sun, continuously. Also: wasn’t the whole deal with Mount Doom that it was hotter than any forge, and thus the only place the One Ring could be destroyed? ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazon-lord-of-the-rings-series-the-rings-of-power/830497/1272 "2022-10-16T07:59:34Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > The Sun is about 1200x more intense per square degree than lava would be ((5800 K/1000 K)^4), This should really be more like (5800 K/1400 K)^4 = 295, which makes it ~170x as intense as the Sun. ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 9:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazon-lord-of-the-rings-series-the-rings-of-power/830497/1273 "2022-10-16T09:12:41Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > Also: wasn’t the whole deal with Mount Doom that it was hotter than any forge, and thus the only place the One Ring could be destroyed? I had thought it was more “where it was born it must and can only die” but that makes sense too. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 9:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazon-lord-of-the-rings-series-the-rings-of-power/830497/1274 "2022-10-16T09:31:02Z")
> [@Love\_Rhombus](#): > > I had thought it was more “where it was born it must and can only die” but that makes sense too. That may be. I guess I was thinking of this passage: > ‘Your small fire, of course, would not melt even ordinary gold. This Ring has already passed through it unscathed, and even unheated. But there is no smith’s forge in this Shire that could change it at all. Not even the anvils and furnaces of the Dwarves could do that. It has been said that dragon-fire could melt and consume the Rings of Power, but there is not now any dragon left on earth in which the old fire is hot enough; nor was there ever any dragon, not even Ancalagon the Black, who could have harmed the One Ring, the Ruling Ring, for that was made by Sauron himself. > > ‘There is only one way: to find the Cracks of Doom in the depths of Orodruin, the Fire-mountain, and cast the Ring in there, if you really wish to destroy it, to put it beyond the grasp of the Enemy for ever. For the other Rings of Power, it seems it _was_ just a matter of just getting it hot enough. Perhaps it’s also true of the One Ring, except that even a dragon could not do it. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 9:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazon-lord-of-the-rings-series-the-rings-of-power/830497/1275 "2022-10-16T09:33:27Z")
I wasn’t being _serious_ in suggesting carbonatite. Carbonatite lava looks like molten chocolate, there’s no mistaking it for what we see on-screen. Just wanted to spread the trivia that there is, in fact, a lava people can fall into, that won’t vaporize them in short order. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 10:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazon-lord-of-the-rings-series-the-rings-of-power/830497/1276 "2022-10-16T10:08:48Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > > [@puzzlegal](#): > > > > every time anyone interacts with the physical world, i have trouble suspending disbelief > > Do you have the same problem with … every action movie and TV series? Because bad physics is standard to those. There was a spiderman show i found unwatchable, due to the angles being so very wrong when spidy swung from webs. But in general, i don’t take action shows very seriously, and I’m not a huge fan. Maybe that’s one of the reasons, I’ve never really thought about it. Whereas the Lord of the Rings is engaging in part because it feels real. And the scale is so vast. The scale of this show is tiny and compressed. But… Why are those ships sailing without regard for the wind? Where did they put all the horses? Or the men, for that matter? Where are the hobbits that they are being struck by random bits of lava? This is not a world i can believe in. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 10:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazon-lord-of-the-rings-series-the-rings-of-power/830497/1277 "2022-10-16T10:37:59Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > Whereas the Lord of the Rings is engaging in part because it feels real. Aah, that might be the difference - the LotR has never felt _real_ to me. It’s always been mythic, which IMO necessarily entails larger-than-life everything. > [@puzzlegal](#): > > This is not a world i can believe in. But the flying, fire-breathing, talking lizards, homicidal walking trees, and the literal flat Earth, you’re OK believing in all of that? ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazon-lord-of-the-rings-series-the-rings-of-power/830497/1278 "2022-10-16T10:59:53Z")
Yup. . ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazon-lord-of-the-rings-series-the-rings-of-power/830497/1279 "2022-10-16T11:17:40Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > But the flying, fire-breathing, talking lizards, homicidal walking trees, and the literal flat Earth, you’re OK believing in all of that? Ah, the old “In fantasy anything goes” notion. Even a fantasy world should have pretty firm rules for how things operate. Cheat and cut corners a few too many times and you lose that kind of verisimilitude, which even in a fantasy milieu risks alienating the audience. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazon-lord-of-the-rings-series-the-rings-of-power/830497/1280 "2022-10-16T11:36:36Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > It’s always been mythic, which IMO necessarily entails larger-than-life everything. Well, everything is smaller than life in this version. People travel hundreds of miles in a few hours. By foot. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazon-lord-of-the-rings-series-the-rings-of-power/830497/1281 "2022-10-16T11:37:33Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > But the flying, fire-breathing, talking lizards, homicidal walking trees, and the literal flat Earth, you’re OK believing in all of that? To quote G.K. Chesterson; > [@](#): > > _It really is more natural to believe a preternatural story, that deals with things we don’t understand, than a natural story that contradicts things we do understand. Tell me that the great Mr Gladstone, in his last hours, was haunted by the ghost of Parnell, and I will be agnostic about it. But tell me that Mr Gladstone, when first presented to Queen Victoria, wore his hat in her drawing-room and slapped her on the back and offered her a cigar, and I am not agnostic at all. That is not impossible; it’s only incredible. But I’m much more certain it didn’t happen than that Parnell’s ghost didn’t appear; because it violates the laws of the world I do understand._ It’s easier for me to believe that an angel in human form, armed with a magic sword and ring, could battle a giant devil made of flame all the way from the bowels of the earth to the top of a mountain, kill it, die, and be resurrected, than it is for me to believe that a batallion of horsemen could cross an ocean and ride over a mountain range in a day or two, even if their mounts are special fancy horsies that imprint on their riders. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2022, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazon-lord-of-the-rings-series-the-rings-of-power/830497/1282 "2022-10-16T12:31:21Z")
> [@John\_DiFool](#): > > Ah, the old “In fantasy anything goes” notion. Even a fantasy world should have pretty firm rules for how things operate No, firm rules are not actually required. Surrealist fantasy is a thing. And also, you’re talking about a particular fantasy universe where a literal _Deus Ex Machina_ has already occurred once. You desire firm rules, that doesn’t make them necessary. But “anything goes” is not the argument I’m making, anyway. I’m not saying “anything goes” in fantasy, I’m saying _if_ you _are_ going to complain about breaking physical laws, it’s hypocrisy to complain about some law breaking but not other, even _more_ egregious ones. It’s like people complaining about ships banking in space when they don’t care if those same ships go FTL. > [@Smapti](#): > > It’s easier for me to believe that an angel in human form, armed with a magic sword and ring, could battle a giant devil made of flame all the way from the bowels of the earth to the top of a mountain, kill it, die, and be resurrected, than it is for me to believe that a batallion of horsemen could cross an ocean and ride over a mountain range in a day or two, even if their mounts are special fancy horsies that imprint on their riders. They are both equally fantastical to me. Hell, invisible Maiar could have picked up the gees-gees and flew them. I don’t particularly care. Like I said earlier, I didn’t care that the volcano wasn’t realistic, why should I care about picayune horse _logistics_? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazon-lord-of-the-rings-series-the-rings-of-power/830497.md?page=63) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazon-lord-of-the-rings-series-the-rings-of-power/830497.md?page=65)